Originally Posted by BillSeurer
A good system with a weak (or no) story ultimately fails. A good example of that is Darklands.

Such a game certainly "fails" when it comes to satisfying me as a gamer, but that clearly doesn't mean it will fail commercially. I'd put all the Elder Scrolls from Arena to Morrowind in that category of "good system/weak story" and they did quite well for Bethesda. I only spent a couple of days with Darklands, and that was back when it was first released, but my recollection is what it lacked more than anything else was charm.

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By the way, games with good story and poor gameplay fail even more, for me. I didn't even try Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2. I don't see much point to playing Bioware games, anymore, since all they've got going on is (allegedly interactive) cinema. Even daytime soaps have more compelling storylines, and I could spend the rest of my life watching those for free if I wanted to. And the only buttons I have to mash are the power, volume and channel. Doesn't get much more immersive and awesome than that, does it? Luckily for Bioware, there are lots of people out there who really want to believe they're participants rather than spectators in these so-called stories. If it wasn't for that aspect of gamer psychology they'd be in real trouble I suspect. They jumped the shark when it comes to gameplay/story balance a long time ago.